


This feeling may not end, but it will not end me

by TheCrowMaiden



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Chronic Pain, Gen, Kinda, One Shot, Team as Family, soldiers inner thoughts about his busted up body, tone starts off bleak and gets better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-02
Updated: 2017-06-02
Packaged: 2018-11-07 23:52:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11069685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheCrowMaiden/pseuds/TheCrowMaiden
Summary: Pain is one thing; you can train yourself to withstand pain. But ache? Aching is something different.A short look into how Soldier 76/Jack feels physically, and what keeps him going.





	This feeling may not end, but it will not end me

It wasn’t the pain that bothered him.

It was the _ache._

Jack could handle a gunshot wound, the sharp pain that throbbed with every pound of his heart as he pressed a hand over the hole and pinched it closed. He could handle a knife across the ribs, the blade leaving a burning line behind as skin split and blood oozed. He could even handle a grenade launching him through the air, his body slamming into pavement and sliding as shrapnel gouged him and burns left every nerve awake as if he had touched a live wire.

Pain was bearable. But the ache, the ache was what made him want to give up.

The way his fingers started to go numb if he had his gun trained on someone too long, and he didn’t know if he could pull the trigger anymore. The way his neck knotted up until it felt wooden. The way his knees screamed when he ran, with an agony that seemed to echo in his skull more than his joints. The way he would lie in bed and try not to scream along with every muscle in his body, the way his body didn’t seem to _belong_ to him anymore.

He ached when he was lying down.

He ached when he was standing.

He ached on days he did nothing and he ached on the days he chased Talon across a city and back. He ached _because_ he ached.

Somewhere in the back of his mind he sometimes found himself making a litany of his pain. A whisper of suffering that he tried to focus on so he wasn’t focused on the actual feeling. Anything but the feeling.

_My arm hurts My arm hurts My arm hurts—_

_My leg is numb My leg is numb My leg is numb—_

_I ache I ache I ache oh god I ache—_

Sometimes sheer stubbornness was all that kept him going, or the relief of the odd day that he felt normal. Sometimes it was the moment before fully waking where his body was only old, not broken.

But more than anything else, he kept going because people needed him and he wanted to be there for them too.

It was for Lucio playing songs that were uplifting but slow while Jack slumped in a chair, until the beat of the music replaced the beat of his muscles in his skull. It was for Reinhardt, who pulled Jack into hugs that were warmer than liniment. It was for Ana, who made him tea, and for Angela, who drank it with him. It was for Lena shushing the others when they thought he was napping, as they giggled and draped him with Hana’s pink, name-branded blanket.

Jack had to live his life with the ache of a lifetime of war.

He would do anything to make sure no one else had to.

**Author's Note:**

> I have chronic pain issues myself, and I actually find Overwatch really nice because there's all these older folks who groan and acknowledge their pains and even though I'm under 30, I still find it comforting.


End file.
